I remember when his old father came here to the funeral, I remarked that Valentine looked overgrown, and not strong, and Mr.
Mortimer said he had been very delicate himself all his youth, and often had a cough (far more delicate, in fact, than his son was); but he had outgrown it, and enjoyed very fair health for many years." Then Laura went on reading:-- "Besides, we think that, though Dorothea refused St.George point blank when he made her an offer, yet she would hardly write to him every week as she does, if she did not like him, and he would hardly be so very silent and reserved about her, and yet evidently in such good spirits, if he did not think that something in the end would come of it." "No," said Mrs.Melcombe, laughing in a cynical spirit, "the ridiculous scrape they are in does not end with Valentine.

If he was really ill, there could be no thought of his marriage with this other girl; and, besides, Miss Graham (if this is true) will have far the best of the two brothers.

_St.George_, as they are so fond of calling him (I suppose because Giles is such an ugly name), is far better off than Valentine, and has ten times more sense." "Dorothea is gone to the Isle of Wight," continued Laura, finishing the letter, "to live with some old friends.

She has no relatives, poor girl, excepting a father, who is somewhere at the other end of the world, and he seems to take very little notice of her.

There is, indeed, an old uncle, but he lives at sea; he is almost always at sea in his yacht, and her only brother sails with him; but nobody knows in the least where they are now.